Piano Concerto / Praeludium / Fantasia on a Theme of Handel / Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli

'Chandos, as usual, is a first-class producer, with committed and taut performances, and beautiful natural, yet dynamic, recordings.'
- Fanfare

This imaginative recoupling of previously released works gives an excellent value disc full of music which includes Howard Shelley's towering performance of Tippett's Piano Concerto.

The Praeludium for brass, bells and percussion was commissioned by the BBC in 1962 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Corporation. Tippett described the music as 'a mosaic of sonorities: rich and sonorous, brilliant, rhetorical, lyrical, distant'.

The inspiration for the Piano Concerto came to Tippett as he listened to a rehearsal of the first movement of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. Under the influence of the Beethoven movement Tippett wrote, 'I found myself persuaded that a contemporary concerto might be written, in which the piano is used once again for its poetic capabilities'. Composed shortly after the completion of his opera The Midsummer Marriage, the Piano Concerto shares many of its characteristics, such as its lambent lyricism and sonorities, and the prevalence of the interval of a fourth in both melodic and harmonic terms.

The other two works recorded here both incorporate the word 'fantasia' within their titles and have their genesis in themes by Handel and Corelli. The Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli (1953) is one of Tippett's acknowledged masterworks; however, the Fantasia on a Theme of Handel (1939-41) is still one of the composer's least-known pieces. It is cast as a series of variations culminating in a fugue, with Handel's tune returning to crown the conclusion. The Corelli Fantasia was commissioned for the 1953 Edinburgh Festival to mark the tercentenary of Corelli's birth and uses, as chosen material, two short extracts from the first movement of Corelli's Concerto grosso No. 2.

'The well-known Corelli Variations have never sounded quite as sumptuous and resonant as here… Howard Shelley is most convincing in the weighty piano-writing full-blooded sound to match.'
The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs

'Chandos's recording copes wonderfully well with the multi-layered complexity of the score.'
Gramophone

'The Piano Concerto, with Howard Shelley, a superb soloist, brings another revelatory performance…'
The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs

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As pianist, conductor and recording artist, Howard Shelley has enjoyed a very distinguished career since his highly acclaimed London debut in 1971, performing each season with renowned orchestras at major venues around the world. Howard Shelley is especially associated with the music of Rachmaninov and has performed and recorded complete cycles of his solo piano works, concertos and songs. His recordings of Mozart and Hummel piano concertos have also won exceptional praise, and with over seventy other commercial recordings testify to his wide-ranging repertoire. Howard Shelley has appeared in several television documentaries including Mother Goose, a documentary on Ravel featuring Howard Shelley as presenter, conductor and pianist which won a Gold Medal at the New York FestivalÕs Awards. Howard ShelleyÕs long association with the London Mozart Players has included a substantial period as their Principal Guest Conductor.